UNews - brain injury

U of L iGEM team earns gold in Boston competition

caroline.zentner — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 18:23:22 +0000

On the strength of a project that may one day lead to a new cell therapy to repair damaged neurons in the brain, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge iGEM (international genetically engineered machine) team was awarded a gold medal at the iGEM Giant Jamboree 2014 in Boston from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3.

Known as the Lethbridge Brainiacs, the iGEM team chose an ambitious project that involved using the brain’s own immune cells to facilitate recovery following a brain injury such as stroke.

The U of L iGEM team, sporting thier signature bow ties and suspenders, participated in the 10th annual Giant Jamboree in Boston at the end of October. Pictured here, from left to right, are Dennis Bettenson, Scott Wong, Zak Stinson, Aubrey Demchuk, Evan Caton, Suneet Kharey, Rhys Hakstol and Graeme Glaister. Missing from the photo are Dustin Smith, Kelsey O'Brien, Billy Cowitz, Rachael Chan and Harland Brandon.

“I was dumbfounded and exhilarated,” says Evan Caton, a doctoral student in biomolecular sciences. “This is my first year at iGEM and there were some other really amazing teams there. It was pretty awesome just to be in Boston and be rewarded for the work that we’ve done over the past year.”

“It was satisfying because we worked quite hard this summer and the gold medal is one of the higher standards of achievement at iGEM, so it’s nice to be recognized for that,” says Zak Stinson, a master’s student in neuroscience.

The team picked a neuroscience project that involves engineering immune cells to identify astrocytes (cells that play a role in the scarring process) and reprogram them to become normal neurons.

“When you have a stroke your neurons die and they don’t grow back. By this system, we would be able to replace those lost neurons and hopefully enhance functional recovery after a stroke and traumatic brain injury,” says Stinson. “We were able to take some pretty big steps towards getting this targeting and delivery system built. We weren’t able to test it fully because it was a really ambitious project for one summer, but we got quite a long ways towards showing that we could package these genes in these cells and send them over to astrocytes.”

The project involved inter-disciplinary collaboration. Individual members brought their respective expertise in biochemistry, biology, art and neuroscience to the team.

“The students are actually integrating expertise we have at the U of L into that design project. The students are the force that allows us to integrate existing strengths into a new application,” says Dr. Hans-Joachim Wieden, a team supervisor and Alberta Innovates Technology Futures Research Chair in Bioengineering in the chemistry and biochemistry department.

More than 220 teams from post-secondary institutions around the world participated in the 10th annual jamboree, with the U of L team being one of two from Alberta and one of 10 from Canada.

“Alberta has actually made up a large portion of the iGEM teams from Canada and they’ve done really well in the past because we have really good support from the provincial government,” says Stinson.

With the Jamboree now complete, team members are busy getting ready for the fourth annual Brick by Brick charity dinner and silent auction Saturday night at the Dr. Foster James Penny Building.

“This year the charity is 5th on 5th Youth Services,” says Caton. “They are facing funding challenges and are at risk of losing a number of programs which could affect thousands of young people.”

The iGEM team has hosted a charity event for the past three years as a way to give back to the community that has supported them throughout the year. As far as Stinson and Caton know, the U of L iGEM team is unique in hosting such an event.

"We got silent auction items from all over the community so the community has been really open to helping us,” says Caton.

All proceeds from the Brick by Brick event will go to 5th on 5th. Although tickets are sold out, anyone wanting to help the organization can donate online through the 5th on 5th Youth Services website.

Hotchkiss leaves legacy gift

trevor.kenney — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:20:26 +0000

Just as his life left an everlasting, positive impact on Calgarians, Albertans and beyond, the late Dr. Harley Hotchkiss's (LLD '07) $1 million gift to support brain research will leave a permanent legacy at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

The gift will move forward important research at the U of L's Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience (CCBN). A permanent endowment that will carry Dr. Hotchkiss's name will support research conducted by the CCBN's world-leading researchers.

"My father was proud of his association with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, through the Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience, for several reasons," says Brenda Mackie, Hotchkiss's daughter. " He had a lifelong love of learning, and he understood that solid medical research leads to better patient outcomes and a healthier population. He strongly believed in giving back to the community."

Hotchkiss is well known for the many contributions he made in the area of brain research. The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute was named in his honour.

"He was proud of the vision of collaboration between the Universities of Lethbridge, Calgary and Alberta. This gift to the U of L is a testament to his respect and admiration for the research being conducted there," says Mackie.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge President Mike Mahon says Dr. Hotchkiss's extraordinary gift will advance the important work being conducted by CCBN researchers in the areas of brain injury, Alzheimer's Disease, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, stroke and many others.

"We are honoured to receive this very significant gift," says Mahon. "U of L researchers have contributed greatly to understanding the brain. These discoveries are making a real difference in people's lives and will be the base of significant future findings and treatments."

In addition to direct support for research, the endowment will also support a speaker series carrying Dr. Hotchkiss's name, which will bring prominent speakers to Alberta and provide enhanced learning and interaction opportunities with students and researchers.

"Over the years, Harley Hotchkiss has been a very significant supporter of neuroscience research and education in Alberta, and at the CCBN in particular," says Dr. Rob Sutherland, Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the U of L. "As researchers look to diversify support for basic research, gifts such as this from the Hotchkiss family become essential in enabling us to conduct the basic brain research and training that will bring about new discoveries that will lead to tomorrow's treatments for brain diseases."

The gift to the U of L is consistent with the encouragement Dr. Hotchkiss gave others about being involved in their communities. In his 2007 Honorary Degree address at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge convocation ceremonies, he stated, "At the end of the road you will look back on how you lived your life and how you treated others. Be a contributor, and wherever you can, leave things a little better."

Brain cell re-growth confirmed at CCBN

trevor.kenney — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:02:34 +0000

A research team at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience has confirmed -- through extensive research and peer-reviewed testing -- the world's first successful example of brain cell re-growth in an adult mammal.

CCBN Researcher Robert Sutherland, postdoctoral trainee Jen Lai , and doctoral candidates Simon Spanswick and Fraser Sparks -- along with a large number of undergraduate and graduate student assistants -- spent the past five years on a project funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) to refine a definitive demonstration to confirm how cortical cells can be encouraged to re-grow in the adult brain.

The implications are significant for further research into dementia-related diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease, involving death of cerebral cortex cells, which affects thousands of people each year in Canada.

Other diseases that can have memory deficit at their core include stroke, the side-effects of most cancer therapies, epilepsy, chronic stress and substance abuse. Their funding was recently renewed by the CIHR at more than $680,000 over the next five years to continue the project.

"At the current rate, in 30 years someone will develop dementia every two minutes," Sutherland said.

"The total cost of dementia could reach $153 billion dollars per year by 2038, up from the current cost of $15 billion dollars per year. Without fundamental scientific advances such as ours, it is certain that the burdens will grow dramatically. It is urgent that we find ways of preventing, reversing, and repairing injured brains, and our findings are a significant advance in that direction."

Sutherland stressed that at this time the research focuses on the reliability of a specific method to re-grow damaged cells in the hippocampus -- and while successful in rats, requires significant further research to be useful to humans in the future.

"Re-growing brain cells has been a central challenge in neuroscience and has been explored in many forms since the late 19th century," Sutherland said.

We took the approach that we should look for a simple way to prove that cells can be re-grown and restore lost functions."

The researchers focused on the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped area of the brain which is responsible for short and long-term memory storage and retrieval.

"The hippocampus is very similar in rats and humans, and generally is the part of the brain where cells governing memory die first, or are affected by illness or injury," Sutherland said.

"Another important fact about this part of the hippocampus is that it has the ability to produce a small number of new brain cells, even in adults, so we knew that the process to make cell re-growth happen was there, but was not able to be turned on or increased at will," Sutherland said.

In Sutherland's experiments the loss of cells was caused by eliminating a hormone called corticosterone that is necessary for keeping alive certain brain cells in the hippocampus.

After these cells died Sutherland and his students showed that the rats had memory problems that resemble dementia.

Through a combination of exercise, an enriched living environment, and a specific protein therapy, the rats, when tested on a complicated exercise field, were proven to have fully recovered their memory, and showed regrowth of the damaged hippocampus parts.

Sutherland said people should be heartened by the fact that there is now a lot more definition to the process of testing cell re-growth. "The long-term goals are to develop treatments for cognitive disorders, especially due to anti-cancer therapies, age-related dementias, and related forms of brain injury."

Parts of this research have been presented at several international neuroscience conferences and published in several peer-reviewed journals, referenced below.

Added funding promotes epigenetic research

trevor.kenney — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:48:49 +0000

A brain injury as a youth can make a person more likely to suffer from strokes, Parkinson's or other diseases of the brain later in life.

The big question might be "why?" but the answer may be found by looking at something very, very small: understanding how an individual gene can go wrong or not work properly over a person's lifetime.

The emerging research discipline that can help find that answer is called epigenetics, and thanks to a significant amount of recent funding, researchers at the U of L are poised to assume a significant leadership role in epigenetics research.

Epigenetics (which means 'beyond genetics' in Latin) is the study of how individual genes and components of individual genes can change in response to environmental conditions or other factors.

Nearly 20 U of L researchers from three academic departments (Neuroscience, Chemistry and Biochemistry and Biological Sciences) and up to 50 graduate and doctoral-level researchers will be involved in the initial phases of the research. Significant expansions are planned for future years of the research program.

In addition to $3 million in start-up funding announced last summer from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, a recent funding announcement from the Government of Alberta's Alberta Science and Research Investments Program (ASRIP) has awarded a research team from the U of L more than $2.8 million.

"This funding, along with our matching funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and support from the U of L and other granting agencies, will boost the U of L to a world-class level in terms of our ability to identify and work on new epigenetics projects," says Dr. Robert Sutherland, a neuroscience researcher and one of the driving forces behind the new epigenetics research program.

Along with colleagues Drs. Olga and Igor Kovalchuk in Biological Sciences and collaborators in Chemistry and Biochemistry and other departments on campus – and a huge team of graduate and undergraduate students – Sutherland said the researchers are looking forward to a lot of work now and in the future to tease solutions to a number of health issues out of the complex genetics system that makes up the human body.

"This funding will allow us to gather even more people and resources together in one place to learn about how individual genes can affect people's health and well-being," Sutherland says.

"Education and science lie at the heart of our future prosperity," adds Doug Horner, Minister of Advanced Education and Technology. "These continued research awards help attract and retain the best and brightest researchers and, in turn, help improve the competitiveness of our industries. Our researchers are paving the way to bring about new products, services and treatments that can lead to a better quality of life for Albertans."

Alberta's universities shared almost $44 million in awards for research into developing new treatments for diabetics, burn victims and lung disease patients, improving GPS accuracy and adding value to Alberta's traditional crops as well as the U of L's epigenetics research program.

For 2009, Alberta Science and Research Investments Program awards provide up to 40 per cent of total project costs to 18 initiatives in priority areas of bioindustries, energy and the environment, and health. The projects will also receive $66 million from other sources, including the federal government and private sector partners. Since 2000, the program has provided more than $169 million for over 100 projects.

Unravelling the mystery of stress

trevor.kenney — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:14:11 +0000

Plastering the pages of magazines and self-help books, stress is a hot topic for overworked North Americans – it's also a poorly understood concept, says neuroscientist Dr. Gerlinde Metz.

"It's a very timely subject these days; people think about it a lot. But it's also a misused term," says Metz, a principal researcher at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN).

Stress isn't solely an emotional condition; it's also a physiological state related to the flight-or-fight response that can be both helpful and damaging. The release of stress hormones, like adrenaline, can help an organism flee a harmful situation, but unmanaged long-term stress can increase the likelihood of certain health conditions and diseases.

"It's very complex. Stress affects so many different organs, so many different functions and the brain in so many different ways," she explains.

In the context of brain injury, stress is relevant on two dimensions. "On one hand, stress is a predisposing factor," says Metz. "On the other hand, if you have a stroke, experiencing a loss of movement and cognitive functions is also a source of stress."

Metz is systematically studying the impact of stress on normal motor system functions – including the complex interactions of hormones and their effects on the motor system – as well as how stress impacts the recovery of brain injury patients, particularly victims of 'silent' stroke, in which a stroke isn't immediately detected (these account for 70 per cent of all strokes).

Traditional rehabilitation therapy for stroke patients takes a tremendous physical toll on them. Inte

nse training, amounting to hours of exercise each day, is needed to enable patients to regain movement.

The result is an accumulation of stress – not only from the loss of normal motor control and the adjustment to a major health condition, but from the treatment itself. By understanding the cellular processes at the heart of stress, and how these relate to different types of brain damage, Metz hopes to find ways to "optimize existing stroke treatments and maybe find ones that haven't been discovered yet."

For instance, non-traditional treatments like massage therapy, known for its ability to lower stress levels, may prove to be a helpful compliment to rehabilitation.

Metz's work on stress is primarily funded by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) which recently renewed her status as an AHFMR Senior Scholar and provided funding of more than $1 million over the next seven years. Metz also receives funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

In addition to her work on stress and stroke, Metz is actively collaborating on a project for the Preterm Birth and Healthy Outcomes Team, a network of researchers and clinicians from across Alberta.

Working with peers from the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, Metz is studying an animal model of preterm birth in order to understand the physiological factors of the phenomenon, particularly hormones.

"Pregnancy is regulated by a complex concert of hormones," says Metz. "Sometimes, something goes wrong at some point. Once we know what's not working, we can try to repair it."

Metz explains that preterm birth is a complex occurrence, the causes of which have eluded scientists. It's a particularly relevant health concern in Alberta, where more than 9 per cent of babies are born prematurely – the highest rate in Canada.

The Preterm Birth and Healthy Outcomes Team includes 20 principal investigators, including Metz, who recently earned a team grant from AHFMR, an award of $5 million over five years, to explore the issue from three main perspectives: the health of mothers, the health of infants and the long-term health outlook for people born prematurely.

"The focus of the team grant is to bring many different people to the table and have them focus on a single topic," says Metz.

Health-care professionals working with mothers and preterm babies comprise an important part of the network, allowing the collected data to immediately benefit those affected.

"It's a great learning process for all of us and really motivating because you know where your results are going."

UNews - brain injury

U of L iGEM team earns gold in Boston competition

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Hotchkiss leaves legacy gift

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Brain cell re-growth confirmed at CCBN

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